


Prompt: Solas

by TwoCatsTailoring



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: And her feelings about him after Trespasser., Gen, Headcanon, I heart you tag wranglers!, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Retrospective, Solas's relationship with the Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2021-01-23 19:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21325609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: A dear friend of mine on tumblr asked me about a year ago:Not from the latest meme, but a question I've been interested in, based on some of your recent posts: could you trace the trajectory of Echo's thoughts and feelings about Solas?This was my answer.
Relationships: Solas & Female Trevelyan
Kudos: 1





	Prompt: Solas

It’s something that she’s thought about time after time, each thought getting to a point where it was like pressing against a new wound too hard, making an ache into stinging agony. At one introspective point, on horseback somewhere in the Silent Plains with nothing better to do she recognized that she could trace the slow, agonizing path of healing from Solas’s betrayal along lines not completely dissimilar to the path of physical healing from his taking the Anchor and the field amputation that followed.

At least she had not been conscious when Bull cut off what was left of her arm and Sera bagged up the leftovers for Dagna. Dorian had to delay leaving for Tevinter by a week until the lyrium shakes wore off - his freezing her arm had been the last pain she remembered, but controlling the immolation to not set her on fire had required more than he had left to give without the liquid help.

No, she had to stay awake and aware to sort through everything she thought and felt over her friendship with Solas. (The number of nights of sleep she had missed in consideration and contemplation did not bear reflection.) Because that is what it had been; friendship. 

At first, she had been properly grateful for his help - had he not been there was a very real chance that she might not have survived her first trip through the Fade. But after just one conversation with him, she filed him neatly into place as one of those men who only enjoy your company if you are telling them how wonderful and knowledgable they were. 

Yes, of course, his expertise was desperately needed and he willingly made himself available to anyone who wished to ask questions. And he was always polite, informative, and presented the information he had in such a way as to make it understandable to whomever he was speaking to. All laudable traits, all things she deeply appreciated both for herself and for others in the Inquisition.

And yet, it was not until he needed her help - not until the incident with the mages in the Exalted Plains - that he managed to drop the constant undertones of haughty learnedness and just be normal. Approachable. Something other than an aggravating know-it-all who had to be endured. 

He remained a bit aloof but after that, after he managed to swallow his pride and ask for help and be grateful for receiving it, he was _easier _to get along with. He was no less informed, but he managed to temper it enough with good humor, polite conversation, intellectual challenges, or whatever else the people around him seemed to need. With her, he was supportive, understanding, and offered his opinion with a much more…. Well, open hand was the way they described it back home. It meant offering something with only the expectation of being heard - not proved wrong or right or anything else. 

Hindsight being what it was, there were far more times that she had touched that idea and seen it for what it was, then had either a long scream, a good cry, or eventually just a heavy sigh to acknowledge the hurt was there.

By the time they were plunging into the depths of the Arbor Wilds, she’d thought only that she wished she had brought him along to the Temple of Mythal because he would have loved it. 

Hindsight was not so ready to let go of the stabs of shame she felt for having thought that. But she had learned already that a person's capacity to blame themselves is outstripped only by the inclination to absolve themselves of guilt when they wish to avoid responsibility.

His leaving before the sweat and blood had even dried after Corypheus’s defeat had been a blow but one she could almost understand. He alone had made no mention of what he would do once the Inquisition had succeeded in its goal. And he had come prepared to depart at some point. But it was still a shock - so soon, and with nothing but some typically cryptic parting remarks. 

She’d thought he would come back eventually. Or that there would be some word from him. As time wore on, she thought instead that there would be maybe some news of him instead. But even with every one of Leliana’s eyes and ears knowing that his friends were waiting to hear from him, nothing ever happened. 

(Poor Voth though, of Sutherland’s party, grew his hair out after getting so tired of scouts and runners mistaking him for Solas. Rat said it had to do with his pride at being Dalish and Echo could believe that.)

She’d given up by the time of the Exalted Council. She remembered him fondly, wondered if he was doing well, but didn’t spend much time thinking about him otherwise. There were just too many other things she’d had to think about in the intervening years. 

Then it all blew up - literally, in at least one case - in her face. It had taken months of going back over every conversation with him, trying to remember what he’d actually said, trying to find a hole, a clue, anything at all to make it make sense. To make anything he had said or done look anything like a test she had somehow passed. Do make her look or feel like anything other than an utter idiot for having trusted him. Believed in him. 

And there was nothing. Nothing outside of her ignorance and his true nature that could make it understandable. And ignorance in the hands of a master manipulator was no comfort at all.

Naturally, he could stand there and say that he took no joy in what he_ had to do_. But she doubted that his discomfort in performing whatever convoluted goal of restoration he harbored would outstrip the pain of loss, grief, and suffering that he would inflict on everyone to obtain it. Doubted if that was in any way comparable to the fact that she would have to go forward in her life, unable to trust an entire race of people she had learned to respect and value for their contributions to the salvation of Thedas. Or the years of constant pain she was in because of his original plan.

And whether any of them - human or elf or Qunari or dwarf- wanted it or not, she would stop him. After all, she’d killed gods before. 


End file.
